U.K. e-book deals—and use of DRM to protect territorial rights
“Orion Group is to publish its first e-book next year—most likely as an exclusive with Waterstones.com—and Macmillan has also taken its first digital steps outside the academic world, quietly making around 40 mass-market titles available in e-book form” (links added). So reports Publishing News. Photo is of Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries series, which Macmillian will publish in E
Two interesting wrinkles:
- “We have the digital rights management software in place to block access from territories where we don’t have rights” PN quotes Mark Stay, an Orion account manager. “It seemed a good idea to publish it as an e-book first. It seemed the natural way to do it. I don’t think e-books are going to take off until you have an iPod equivalent and you have students using it for all their books. But we want to be ready and I’m sure we’ll learn from the experience.”
- Web 2.0 (”expose of how a strange group of young opportunists, chancers and geniuses found instant fame and fortune by messing about on the web”) will be released a year from now as an e-book before it’s a paperback. Please note some publishers such as S&S, here in the States, are already using e-books to preview p-books.
(Via GalleyCat.
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